Project Future Boys - Another Project That People Probably Doubt I'll Finish

In my last post, I alluded to my decision to start a new army. Time to expand upon that.

I've named it 'Project Future Boys" after an Electric Six song. This is for three very important reasons:

1) Electric Six are awesome.
2) Projects sound cooler with cryptic names
3) Its an Eldar army, so a handful of the song lyrics apply to a race of space elves.

Background
As I previously mentioned, my Iron Warriors (though I love them) are taking a million years to paint. If I didn't have to work, then maybe they'd be done by now. I really need to have a full army to play with, I'd like it to be fairly soon and it ain't gonna happen with my "super paint job 3000" marines.

A new army would also be great for practice at adding a little speed to my painting. I've been wanting to try out some simpler, faster methods as an experiment, and a new army gives me a good platform for this.

Army Selection
Once I had decided on the idea of a new army, it was time to pick one out. I went straight to Yes the Truth Hurts and started poking around. Weeks ago, I had taken a serious look at his Competitive Daemon list. I have to say that it looks fun and can be EXTREMELY cheap to build (around $350). This one will be kept in the back of my mind for later.

However, I ended up settling on his Eldar Remix list. Much more expensive to build, but far fewer troop models to paint. The Eldar codex also seems to be much more diverse. I like the idea of daemons, but I'm also not thrilled about my only complete army being entirely CC and deep strike dependent and having no where to go except for more cc and crappy shooting.

In any case, I'm also a full supporter of his thoughts on mechanization and felt like the Eldar list was very strong. It also looked like a ton of fun. Plus it has Fire Dragons, which I loved as models for some reason.

Ze List
Reproduced here for people who hate following links.

1 Autarch
with Fusion Gun and some Crazy Chainsword (I had 5 extra points)

5 Fire Dragons
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent
Shuriken Cannon upgrade and Twin-Linked Shuriken Cannons

5 Fire Dragons
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent
Shuriken Cannon upgrade and Twin-Linked Shuriken Cannons

10 Storm Guardians
with 2x Flamer
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent
Shuriken Cannon upgrade and Twin-Linked Bright Lances

10 Storm Guardians
with 2x Flamer
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent
Shuriken Cannon upgrade and Twin-Linked Bright Lances

9 Dire Avengers @ 253 Pts
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent
Shuriken Cannon upgrade and Twin-Linked Bright Lances

9 Dire Avengers @ 253 Pts
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent
Shuriken Cannon upgrade and Twin-Linked Bright Lances

1 Vyper
2x Shuriken Cannon

1 Vyper
2x Shuriken Cannon

1 Vyper
2x Shuriken Cannon

1 Fire Prism
Shuriken Cannon upgrade

1 Fire Prism
Shuriken Cannon upgrade

1 Fire Prism
Shuriken Cannon upgrade

Total Roster Cost: 2000

Pretty neat, I think. Lots of shooty guys and a ton of zoomin' tanks. The energy field on the wave serpents makes me pee my pants at how awesome it is. I'd like to use regular guardians as it saves me a few bucks (storm guardians are 8 to a box, direct only - Dear GW: fuck you), but I think I'd loose too much utility without the flamers.

Painting
Back to my focus - painting. As I mentioned, I want to paint this faster than I've been in the habit of doing. That means no fancy paint techniques, few (if any) conversions, no fancy bases and very simple color schemes.

I'll rely on a lot of simple layering and line highlighting. There's also a pretty neat corroded bronze technique that I managed to dig up from dakkadakka (which was a pain in the ass) that's very easy to reproduce.

I ended up settling on Ulthwe colors as black can look very striking using only line highlights and bone is very easy to paint. The airbrush has also helped immeasurably with the base coating - it speeds up the process with colors that can be a pain to get good coverage on (orange) and I've got a solid, ready-mixed airbrush flat black.

The only down side is the shear amount of paint I've had to buy. I have almost no oranges and blues, so I've had to pick up a lot of each. On the other hand, I'm getting some great experience with the Reaper Master Series paints. They're pretty awesome for layering.

Progress
Things are good so far. I had initially hoped to be doing two tanks and 10-20 guys in 2 weeks. That was clearly fanciful and unrealistic. So far it's been 2 weeks and I've only gotten 1 tank and 6 guys done. Not as good as I hoped, but faster than the Iron Warriors by a wide margin. I also expect things to get faster as I get more accustomed with the painting techniques I'm repeating and grav-tank assembly becomes second nature (9 is a lot of practice).

Things have, thus far, played out like I hoped. The tank and the fire dragons look great and I've gotten some pretty good looking models without too much effort. I've also got some good experience painting black with a quick line highlight style (I typically avoid black as a main color)

I'll probably be behind schedule for a while - though I think my 3rd wave (3 vypers) might give me some time to catch up.

More updates as they happen.